The Daunting Task of Seriously Cutting the Size of Government

Nov 12, 2010

RUSH: I have said in the past that presidents don’t go to summits unless they had deals already in place. How could this happen? Well, we’re dealing with an entirely different animal. We’re dealing here with a narcissist type ego who still thinks that just by showing up he’s gonna get what he wants. I mean honest to Pete here, folks. Look, I have been doing some serious thinking about where we are in this moment after the election, especially since this deficit commission panel report has come out. It has focused my view on where we are, and if we’re serious about returning this nation to its rightful owners, i.e., those who believe in liberty and freedom, we have a mountainous project ahead of us. And it really became clear as I went through all of the mishmash, the details of the deficit commission panel, as I said yesterday, the whole thing should be ignored. All it does is cement everything that’s wrong in place, and that is the premise.

For example, if we’re really serious, and we must be, about reducing the size of government, we can’t accept the notion that whatever was passed in the past is permanent and can’t be removed, and that we can only tinker around the margins. ‘Well, Rush, you can’t do anything about Social Security. I mean it’s there, people expecting.’ If that attitude is prevalent then we’re never gonna really get to the meat of the problem. ‘Rush, you can’t really cut the National Education Association. The teachers unions will go crazy.’ Okay, if we can’t, then we’re forever gonna be piddling around the margins on this and never really get to the crux of what is wrong. And we’re up against people who use government to create loyalty via pressure groups, constituencies, and this is gonna have to be addressed, too. It’s not just an important fiscal matter. It’s a matter of reestablishing the republic.

The country was never set up and it was never envisioned to have one political party use the public trough as significantly as the Democrat Party has to cement itself in permanent power. The country was not set up for the Democrat Party to use federal tax revenues to buy off unions, to pay union pensions and all this, to buy car companies. That’s not what this country was founded to do. We cannot keep funding public sector union campaign war chests. We are allowing tax revenues, income tax revenues to pay for the campaign war chests of unions and other groups. And on the other hand we’re trying to slash government. But in the process we are funding, we are paying our opponents. We’re paying unions. We are funding their operations and all these other left-wing special interest groups. Now, being serious about reducing the size of government is going to be a mammoth task that nobody’s really even talking about now. I’m not trying to be negative. I’m trying to be, in fact, exactly the opposite.

Now, Paul Ryan, I’m happy as I can be that Paul Ryan and people like him are working on the numbers, and that is crucial. But there are broader issues than just the numbers. Strategies that have to be conceived relating to reasserting the Constitution, and chief among them we have to end the whole notion of tax dollars being redistributed to left-wing public interest groups: unions, ACORN, this kind of thing. If we don’t do that, we’re never gonna really get to the heart of the matter. These people are 20% of our population in any poll you look at, self-identified. But they are made to look more prominent because of where they are. They are in the media, they are in education, they’re in academia, and they are propagandizing the youths of this country. From high school and junior high, grade school on, we’ve all heard horror stories. Kids come home from school and we hear what their teachers are teaching them. And people are afraid to go to school and do anything about it ’cause it might affect the grade. They don’t want to cause any trouble, don’t want to make any waves and so forth. Meanwhile, kids aren’t being taught. They’re being propagandized. They’re being indoctrinated and that’s being done with your own tax dollars.

The solution to it, many people say, ‘Okay, I want to get my kid out of the public education system. I want to go to private schools.’ And guess who objects to that? The very people who run the public schools: the government, the unions. We tend to forget, but there was a voucher program of sorts in Washington right when Obama was immaculated, and it was aimed at low income, poor minority students being allowed to attend private schools, the likes of which Obama’s kids go to and Algore’s kids went to and Chelsea Clinton went to, and it was working. The test scores, the results of these urban kids were going through the roof and the education was being paid for via philanthropy. Obama’s immaculated and cancels the program. It wasn’t about education. It was about protecting his union buddies, and we all know this. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know.

But if we’re gonna be serious about slashing government and reducing its size and getting it out of people’s lives, this is what we’re going to have to attack. Not the deficit commission panel and their ideas. I mean that’s just more of the same. As I said yesterday, this draft report, I don’t care if the commissioners went out and did it without the knowledge of the other participants on the committee. I don’t care if they did it to float a trial balloon. The point is it’s nothing different than what’s already in place now, just with different numbers. It accepts every premise that has been established, that has built government into the leviathan that it is.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let me get into some of this in detail to give you an idea what I’m talking about. Since the New Deal we have operated from the premise that whatever is in place stays, but we’ll work around the edges. We’ll try to streamline it, make it more efficient on the margins. If we are serious about reducing the size of government and returning the whole concept of freedom and liberty as founded, we need to go after the foundations of the left. We need to explain to the American people why they are destructive, why they are dangerous, why they spread poverty, why they spread illiteracy, how they destroy the American family. I do it all the time. We talk about a welfare program — I don’t care what it is.

I’ve railed a couple of times this week about the very thought of all of these supposed programs of compassion just bug me to no end because they destroy. They destroy humanity, they destroy people’s dreams, they take away their initiative, creating this dependency all for the sake of one party’s political power under the guise of helping people, when in fact it’s destructive. They spread poverty. They spread illiteracy. They dumb people down on purpose. This is the kinds of thing that’s going to have to be attacked. This is not a time… Since we’ve won the election, this is not a time to pull back on engaging the public. Who is in charge? Is anybody? Who is in charge of breaking up the NEA? Who’s in charge of breaking up the federal unions?

Who is in charge of digging into the bureaucracy and slashing it? Who’s in charge of developing a strategy for stopping the confirmation of liberal activists to the court? Who is in charge of eliminating the Internal Revenue Code and making the case for a flat tax or FairTax? Is there anybody on our side doing any of this? You, the American people, are way ahead of the politicians on this. This is what you are expecting. I will bet a dollar to a doughnut that many of you were expecting this kind of plan to be in place and implemented shortly after the election. I can quote you some of my own friends send me e-mails, ‘All right, Rush, tell me this is what they’re gonna do,’ and they had a laundry list.

I wrote back and I said, ‘I’m not aware that any of this is going to be undertaken.’ So you are expecting this kind of thing, whether you’re Tea Party or not. The victory on Tuesday, November 2nd, this is what it means to you, not just sit there and say, ‘Okay, we won, you lost, and we’ll tinker around the margins here. We’ll talk about the retirement age of Social Security.’ That’s not what you’re talking about. That’s not what you are expecting. If we allow the mission to be defined too narrowly and then get bogged down in the weeds — and I’ll give you an example of that is earmarks. Earmarks is getting far more attention than it deserves. Earmarks were one of McCain’s mantras.

I mean, fine. If you can get rid of them, get rid of them. But it’s not gonna do a damn thing to cut the size of government, to cut entitlements, to comply with the Constitution. Getting rid of earmarks distracts our attention. Why do you think Obama is so much in favor of the debate on earmarks and banning earmarks? They’re just one part of what we have to deal with here. I don’t think we should gear up all of our political capital to fight earmarks, which amounts to, what, a total of $15 billion? Instead of the focusing most of our efforts and resources on an education campaign at the vast array of issues and programs that really are dragging down the nation.

I said the other day that one of the bad things about earmarks is that they are used as bribes, that in a sense they are anti-democratic and that we would not have had Obamacare without them — the Cornhusker Kickback and the Louisiana Purchase and all that. But looked at another way (which I was forced to do) ask yourself this question. Why is it legitimate for a federal agency — and you pick it: EPA, Fish and Game, Fish and Wildlife, whatever, you picking it from the federal bureaucracy. Why is it legitimate for a federal agency to issue regulations that deny me the use of my property rights?

Why is it legitimate for one of these federal agencies to impose costs, or even create programs outside of Congress, but when an elected congressman or Senator uses the legislative process to do the same thing, that’s illegitimate? My point is that the result of earmarks are happening all the time from bureaucracies, EPA, these mandates that come down from Fish and Wildlife Service, how you can and can’t use this area of a National Park, where you can and can’t go in a National Park, or what kind of lightbulb you’re gonna use. Some people raise a little hell about it, but not much. But when an elected official does the same thing via the legislative process, all hell breaks loose. Now, don’t misunderstand me. I’m just saying earmarks are a symbol, but reforming and getting rid of earmarks is not going to substantively reduce the size of government at all.

The federal bureaucracy… I don’t know how many people understand this. The federal bureaucracy is issuing grants for tens of billions of dollars to do all kinds of things. Look at what comes out of the National Endowment for the Arts. They’re issuing grant money to left-wing liberal wackos to do whatever in the name of ‘art,’ and all it is is moral corruption, perversion. So why should a Senator or congressman who can be thrown out by the voters not be able to do so and let his record stand or fall at the ballot box? You’ve gotta be consistent about all of this. It doesn’t mean I would do it. Don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying if it’s okay for a bureaucracy to do it, it’s okay for a congressman to do it. I don’t agree with this. I’m just illustrating a point.

The issue is who decides, and how? Because whether it’s earmarks or whether it’s the legislative process or whether it comes from a bureaucracy, the fact of the matter is it still happens. The whole argument on earmarks has now become mythical. Maybe I’m wasting my time with the counterpoint here. I just don’t think we should be distracted by it. It’s symbolic. There’s a lot more to go after than earmarks. Now, I just think the left would love it if we spend all of our time on it. I think the left would go nuts. Obama is crazy for and would love for a debate on earmarks, and while we’re debating earmarks they’ll go out and continue to steal the country. Look at these czars, all these unelected people. We don’t know what they’re paid. Look at fiats. Look at the drilling ban in the Gulf, and look at the fraud and the hoax that that was.

In fact, worse. They lied in letters and publications about what experts said about the drilling moratorium. That was a purely political mover that cost tens of thousands of jobs. The federal government owns 25% of the landmass of the United States, and it continues to grab more and more of it. Why? Where’s the guy with the strategy to sell off a lot of that? Sell off government buildings, close ’em down, cut the federal bureaucracy by 20%, sunset every single independent agency, require Congress to reinstitute them, and on and on. You make sure that all of this is done in the light of day so people see how government is growing. But right now institutionalized liberalism is in the government. It’s going to take a serious strategy to weed this stuff out. Just nibbling around the margins like the retirement age on Social Security or cutting defense here and there is playing their game.

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RUSH: Look, what I’m saying is that we need to be the ones who move the debate. We need to be the ones who set the terms. It’s totally out of hand. Obama ought not be able to dictate one dime’s worth of spending. That has to come from Congress. The bureaucracy should not be able to dictate behavior. This is what the elected officials of this country are all about. In fact, you could even make the case that we don’t even mess around with debate. Just do it. Just suggest a 10% budget cut. Make them defend all of this rotten stuff. Make them defend the health care bill. Send a veto bill up there every week. Cut federal taxes 10% across the board. Just do it. Issue a bill to eliminate the IRS, go to a flat tax, a FairTax. Just do it and make them defend it.

Make them defend the status quo. Make them defend what it is that’s gotten us into this debt. Make the left defend all of it. We don’t debate ’em. It’s pedal to the metal time here. This is what we talked about all leading up to the election. This is why it mattered. This is what the Tea Party was all about. We, the people, are way ahead of the politicians on this. All this talk about compromise, fine and dandy, compromise from our positions. We run the House of Representatives. That’s the people’s house. We propose — how about a 10% across the board income tax cut? Just every rate, every bracket right now, cut it by 10%. Make them defend this debt. Make them defend all of this corruption. Make the left defend all of the programs that have gotten us to near bankruptcy. Make them defend, make them come out and say, ‘Yes, we believe we ought to be able to take federal tax dollars and give it to the SEIU union thugs. We think federal revenues should be used to fund our community organizing groups, ACORN.’ Make them say this. ‘But, Rush, but, Rush, it’s so controversial, what are they going to say about us?’ What haven’t they said about us?

We’re either serious about it or we’re not. But we set the terms of the debate. Suddenly the Bush tax levels have to be defended by the left. It’s happened there. They’re the ones out there doing the debate on this. We’re the ones that want those tax cuts to continue and now it’s Obama and Axelrod that can’t get on the same page. Put them on defense and do it on every issue. We’re showing how it can be done on the tax cut issue. It can be done on everything.

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RUSH: I think it’s all fine and dandy that we’re defending the Bush tax cuts, 2001, 2003. Let’s go for more tax cuts. Let’s cut tax further. We all know that’s what’s gotta be done to revive this economy. We can move the ball forward. Make them defend this stagnation, is all I’m saying. The public voted for massive change. They did. It’s time to do it.

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RUSH: Does anybody believe — seriously now — does anybody believe that we would end our existence, does anybody believe that we would cause massive pain, hunger, starvation with a 10% across the board budget cut, including defense? Does anybody believe we could not do that? How many of you have had to cut your budgets how many times over the course of your lives far more than 10%? And I think you’re still alive, and I think you’re still eating and I think you were able to then come back and replace it at some point because financial circumstances are always in flux and fluid. The simplest way to do this is the best way. You start nibbling around, ‘We’re gonna cut 10% here, we’re gonna eliminate there.’ No, just cut everything 10%, including defense, cut everything across the board 10%.

I know what’s gonna happen. The teachers, the firemen, the policemen, all of these people are gonna raise holy hell. All the public employees gonna raise holy hell because they’re not gonna see any cuts in the private sector. Well, there will be cuts in the private sector because how many people in the private sector are living off the public sector? Not just the public sector employees, but there are a lot of sponges that are living off of it. It is ridiculous to believe that we cannot cut 10% in every budget item, and once you do that and then people see that the earth doesn’t end, the sky doesn’t fall, then you can get even more serious about it. The private sector, by the way, has already been cut far more than 10% by the public sector. What do you think 17% unemployment is? What do you think left-wing economic policies have caused? Left-wing economic policies are causing great harm to the private sector of this country. Left-wing social policy is destroying the lives of everybody those policies touch. Left-wing Democrat Party, liberal, whatever you want to call it social policy is robbing every beneficiary of the opportunity to be all that he or she can be. And it’s being done on purpose, to create dependence, to create incompetence, to create need. And the truly offensive part is the people doing this claim to be doing it out of compassion, when they are nothing more than destroyers.

Look at the federal budget, the idea we can’t cut 10%, the idea we can’t go back to 2008 budget levels or the country would end? The country’s on the way to ending the way we’re going. We don’t have the money we’re spending anyway. All I’m saying is if we’re serious about this we’re serious about it, and we gotta make this debate on our terms, the compromise have to be on our terms. You know something? Look at that deficit commission panel. In their introduction, the preamble, whatever you want to call it, it sounds like Reagan. They talk about simplifying the tax code, go down to three rates, three brackets, broaden the base and so forth. Exactly. Do it. Eliminate the IRS. Instead, why do we need 16,000 new IRS agents for Obamacare? Is that what we need? Do we want that? Do we want 16,000 new IRS agents or do we want to eliminate the IRS and institute a much simpler fair or flat tax. You can argue about what kind it is. There are people that believe FairTax is better than the flat tax or what have you, but simplification is the way to go. Make them defend this, is all I’m saying. I don’t see how we can lose if they are forced to defend this.

Now, there are many people on our side, part of the ruling class, that are gonna end up having to defend it. When I say on our side, they are Republicans. But there is a left-wing shadow government that is running our lives in this country, and it’s gotta be defunded and these people have to start fending for themselves. Everybody else fends for themselves. Why do these people not have to? How come so many people in this country get to feed off of us? Where is it written that because of their so-called good works, their philanthropic nature, why is it they get to feed off of us? Where is that written? It isn’t. Make them feed themselves. Make them become self-feeders. Or better yet, we’ll feed off of them for a while. Let ’em see how it feels. I’m just saying, folks, if we’re dead serious about this, this is what we’re looking at. And it really isn’t that hard. The UK is doing 10% across the board cuts now, France and Germany are soon gonna follow. Yeah, we might have riots and protests, but you see who’s rioting and protesting. That’s gonna happen anyway at the bare mention of cuts, even before they happen. But I have a whole different attitude about them. These protesters are protesting, in essence, for more freebies. I’m happy for them to suffer pain.

I’m getting sick and tired of these people thinking they’re entitled to feed off of everybody else, that they’re entitled to a life of no charges and no costs simply because of — well, now, you may think that’s cruel, but the people in this country who are not depending on everybody else to eat are experiencing pain of their own. They’re losing their jobs; they’re losing their freedom; they’re losing their liberty because of people like these sponges and others. It’s a sad thing, the sponges are being created by the Democrat Party and the American left. People are being born sponges.

Look at this. This is Alan Fram, Associated Press. I predicted this. ‘People back Republican tax cut plans but not the GOP campaign to repeal President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, according to a poll suggesting that the Republicans’ big Election Day win was not a mandate for the party’s legislative wish list.’ Did I not tell you you were gonna see this? That the election didn’t mean what it means. The election doesn’t mean what it meant. The American people do not want health care repealed. The American people do not want the budget downsized. The American people do want their tax cuts, and AP has come out with a poll and that’s the headline: ‘Public Backs GOP on Taxes, Not Health.’

And then we go to TheHill.com: ‘Grassley: Health Repeal Will Die in Senate,’ trying to depress us. ‘GOP Sen. Charles Grassley (Iowa) admitted Wednesday that a full repeal of President Obama’s healthcare law will die in the Senate.’ Well, everybody knows that. That isn’t news. That’s not the point. We know it’s gonna die in the Senate this year. But who’s to say that it’s gonna continue to die as we get closer to the 2012 elections? There is an ongoing effort by the interests on the left to make sure that the election results and returns are not about what they were about. There is an effort out there to convince as many people as possible that overturning and repealing health care was not what this election was about, when it most definitely was. ‘No, Mr. Limbaugh, no, Mr. Limbaugh,’ says the New Castrati, ‘It’s clear, Mr. Limbaugh, that the American people simply do not like the size of government, the deficit spending and they want to reduce –‘ and you can’t fix any of that without getting rid of health care, Mr. New Castrati. They are inexorably linked.

‘Speaking to Iowa radio station KCIM, [Grassley] conceded that Senate Republicans do not have the 60 votes necessary to force through a full repeal.’ This is a nonstory, but here it is a headline, The Hill trying to make everybody depressed, think the Senate is selling you out, Senate Republicans selling you out trying to make Grassley look like a RINO, giving up already. ‘Grassley: Health Repeal Will Die in Senate.’ It’s a nonstory. We know it’s gonna die in the Senate. We didn’t win the Senate. That’s not the point. The point is to make them defend it. Welfare reform died three times on Clinton’s desk until the fourth time when it didn’t, and we got it. These things can happen.

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RUSH: Starting in northern Virginia with Will. Great to have you, sir, and I appreciate your patience.

CALLER: Hey, Rush, I’d like to ask your opinion later on something separate from what I’m calling about, if that’s okay.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: But to my point. You’ve been talking about cutting government.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: I worked for the federal government for ten years. I’m a mid-level worker bee type.

RUSH: You sound just like Harry Reid.

CALLER: (snickers)

RUSH: To me.

CALLER: Well, as soon as —

RUSH: Do me a favor, say, ‘This war is lost.’

CALLER: This war is lost.

RUSH: You sound like Harry Reid to me.

CALLER: (chuckles)

RUSH: I know you’re not. You just do. I didn’t mean to interrupt you. Go ahead and make your point.

CALLER: As soon as Obama took office —

RUSH: Yeah?

CALLER: — there was announcement after announcement after announcement for about a good year for high-paying, high-level jobs. This is just at my agency here. We’re talking about analyst types, IT types, program manager types. Our mission, our responsibility, our workload, nothing changed. We were getting along fine without these people.

RUSH: Wait. Now, I want to make sure I understand. They were soliciting more employees, hiring more people?

CALLER: Yeah, when I say announcement, that’s the first step in the hiring process, and these people have now been hired.

RUSH: But why were they announcing it to you who already had a job?

CALLER: No, they announce it like on USA Jobs. Any time a new job comes out they have to announce it.

RUSH: Oh, okay. So what you’re saying is as soon as he got into office he went on a federal hiring spree?

CALLER: Big time. And like I said, they’re always high-level type jobs. And these jobs you can’t really account for what they do or what their productivity is. Unlike a guy like me, who you can. You know, there’s a mechanism in place to track what we do and what our workload is. So basically what I’m getting at is, some of the people in my type of positions — not so much me, but the newer people with less seniority — they’re kinda worried because people are talking about, ‘Hey, let’s cut government employees,’ et cetera, and like I said there was just a flurry of hiring all these high level, high paying types.

RUSH: But were they really doing any work, or is it just patronage-type stuff?

CALLER: You know, from my level, we just kept looking at each other, like, ‘Why are they hiring all these new people for these high level jobs?’ ‘Cause like I said we were getting along fine without ’em before Obama came in, and our mission didn’t change, our workload didn’t change, nothing. So our guys were thinking, you know, we need to look into any new position, especially the high level ones that were filled, not so much filling a vacancy when someone retired or left, but these were all just new — poof! — they just popped up out of nowhere, and there really isn’t a need for ’em, in our perspective. We’re trying to figure out why.

RUSH: Of course not, from your perspective, but from Obama’s. I’m just reminded of the story, it backs up what you’re saying, May 11th of this year, headline: ‘Obama Wants Federal Agencies to Hit the Gas on Hiring.’ This is — this is even after the period of time where you saw it happening.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: This is exactly the kind of thing I’ve been talking about in the first hour and a half of the program, how these people build up the size of government. Whether these new hires are doing anything or not, they are being paid and so their vested interest is to protect the government. I’m sure it’s patronage jobs. I’m sure it’s payoffs for campaign works and who knows who else. But it’s probably… Did these people show up for work, did you ever see them?

CALLER: Well, I work in kind of a satellite office separate from headquarters where all these people are supposedly working. I went down there and actually for a conference, and there was a room full of them, and they were just kind of, you know, during this conference discussing things, but not really doing anything.

RUSH: That’s anecdotal. I’m sure some of them were no-show jobs, but this is how you build the size of government, pure and simple. There was no reason to hire these people. There couldn’t possibly have been.

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RUSH: James somewhere in Arizona, great to have you on Open Line Friday. Hello.

CALLER: Hey, how you doing, Rush?

RUSH: Very well, thank you.

CALLER: You’re the second person of all the people that I’ve been wanting to talk to. You know who you come second to?

RUSH: Who’s that?

CALLER: President Reagan.

RUSH: Well, thank you very much.

CALLER: Yes. Yes.

RUSH: I appreciate that.

CALLER: He made a fantastic impression on me in the eighties when I was a young Air Force trooper, and I gotta tell you, he made me proud to be American, and so do you. Anyway, getting to the idea of cutting back on the federal government, you know, I am an employee of such, and it’s very frustrating to witness the waste that seems to be an inundation within this entity that we serve.

RUSH: Yeah. So you’re saying you think it can be cut?

CALLER: A lot of things can be eliminated. Not just cut, eliminated, which is why I didn’t want to tell your screener who I am and have it announced nationally, but anyway, a lot of things can be cut. But I would recommend starting with a lot of the positions that have suddenly come about within the last year or two. I witnessed it, I see it, and it’s just maddening. And quite frankly, I would go on record by saying I would be happy to have my pay frozen, but I would put this under a condition. If Congress enacts that, they need to freeze their own, too. They need to be the example of all of this stuff.

RUSH: Well, more power to you. Ten percent across the board budget cut would include a 10% pay reduction, federal employees. These are the kind of things, if we’re serious, that are going to have to happen. If we’re not, then, you know, we just keep nibbling around the edges here in the margins and think we’re going somewhere. It’s gonna take a real concerted effort to do this, and there’s going to be all kinds of caterwauling. There’s going to be people screaming like stuck pigs over it, and that’s when you have to have fortitude to stick to it, and a lot of people don’t. The first signs of any pain (crying) people will cave and not want to be responsible for all that. People are just conditioned here in our country, there shouldn’t be any suffering. That’s understandable, but we’re not talking about suffering here, we’re talking about survival. Survival as we were founded what we’re talking about.

We don’t want to become a socialist country, and make no mistake about it, that’s what Obama is. And they’re going out of their way in this administration to do everything they can to cover that up. They don’t want to be known as socialists. They try to impugn, laugh at and make fun of anybody who calls them that. And the reason they don’t want to be called that is because it means something. A socialist is what a socialist is. It has a definite meaning, and it’s not something they want to be thought of as. Obama didn’t run as a socialist. He didn’t run on a socialist agenda. He did let it slip out a couple of times. Joe the Plumber. ‘I think we need to spread the wealth around.’ Look what happened. They had to go investigate Joe the Plumber and try to turn him into a kook because Obama misspoke. Well, that’s exactly what we face and socialism is just a step down the road to something even worse. At some point we’re gonna have to be serious about stopping and then going the other direction. It can be done. It’s just a matter of are we gonna have to guts the stick with it once we start it.

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RUSH: Here’s just one example — and there are countless examples like this — Planned Parenthood got $350 million in tax dollars in this fiscal year that ended June 30th, 2008, and the president of Planned Parenthood was paid $385,000 a year. That’s all from your tax money. Why should Planned Parenthood be supported by you, and why should anybody earn 385 grand a year working there paid for by you?

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RUSH: Susan in Jamaica, Virginia, great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Hello, Rush. Oh, my goodness, I don’t know what you had for breakfast this morning, but you are right on. And, as I recall, we had control of the federal government under Bush, and we all blew it. Not just Bush, with his book coming out, we got lazy, lackadaisical, and we have almost lost our country. I remember over the last couple of years you kept us going, kept our hopes up, kept us optimistic, and callers calling in almost in tears — well, some of them in tears — saying what can we do, Rush, what can we do other than vote? And it wasn’t time to vote. And now we are almost back in the saddle and we have got their attention. And you are so right, we need to hammer them, hammer them with our words.

RUSH: But we weren’t able to reduce the size of government even under Reagan, so we’re gonna have to try another approach. This is not to criticize Reagan. This is to illustrate how challenging it is. Look, in our own party, Susan, there are going to be Republicans who want us to think that they’re serious when they’re not about this.

CALLER: I know. I know. But no matter how small we, or our idea or our comment or our support, we have just got to tell our representatives, and I don’t mean just one, I mean we need to tell all of them. We need to set the agenda, like you said.

RUSH: That’s right.

CALLER: We need to set the debate.

RUSH: That’s right.

CALLER: We need to support their actions.

RUSH: That’s right.

CALLER: And we need to over-shout the media, the Drive-By Media with our voices. And, Rush, can I tell you something else since it’s Open Line Friday?

RUSH: No.

CALLER: Oh.

RUSH: No, go ahead. Go ahead. (laughing)

CALLER: Well, I wanted to tell you that over the last couple years, when I heard all those callers calling in that were speaking from my heart that were saying, ‘What can we do? What can we do?’ Well, somewhere along the line you planted an idea in my head, and I started a website to help make a breeze out of writing to our representatives and you can write all our representatives one letter. I’ve designed the whole thing. Can I tell you what it is?

CALLER: I wasn’t gonna call you and tell you about it, I was gonna write you and not call you, but honestly, we have got to tell them. And I was at a fundraiser for my local congressman, and he spoke to the people, and he doesn’t even know about the idea yet, but he said, ‘You have got to tell us what you want us to do. We have got to know that you’re behind us.’ And maybe that was just trying to drum up support —

RUSH: I have a little problem with that. Wait a second. I have a little problem with that. After this election you’ve got an elected official saying we need to tell him what to do? We need to let him know we’ve got his back?

CALLER: It was before the election.

RUSH: Oh.

CALLER: It was before the election. But I think we need to tell them what we want cut, we need to give them ideas. On our website you can write to just Republicans if you want to, you can write to one person or almost 600.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: But we need to tell them whether we use that —

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: — or just regular e-mail or we sit down and write ’em a card, we need to tell them.